Fairfield (not far from Freezeout Lake)

Fairfield

“A guy I used to know — he taught me all about the sky.”
Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra

I wanted it depressed, one dusty road
and two cafés both with ‘help wanted’ signs.
Where I ate, the waitress was too in love
with the cook for the things I wanted to say.
The canal passed through town ripe green
and grain, I had to admit, grew assured.
A dog slept fat on warm gravel. No trouble foreseen
raising funds to build the new gym.

I’d expected hurt, the small town kind everyone
knows and ignores, a boy who tried and tried
to leave home, sobbing his failure alone
at the mirror back of the bar, still wearing
his ’39 letter sweater, still claiming
the girl who moved to Great Falls will return.
I wanted to honor him in this poem,
to have the sky turn dark as I drove off
the town in my rear view mirror
huddled with fear white in black air.

The drunk I saw seemed happy. I drove empty away.
What if Fairfield sent signals to Mars
and signals came back saying all weather is yours
no matter how vulgar? I imagined cruel sky
left every bird orphan. When I passed
Freeze Out Lake I saw herons accepted that refuge
as home, and I knew the water was green with sky,
not poisoned green with resolve.

—Richard Hugo, from White Center

(Freezeout Lake photos taken by me last March)